V. I. Lenin

Speech  Delivered At A Meeting of

Cells’ Secretaries
Of The Moscow Organisation Of The R.C.P.(B.)

November 26, 1920[1]

Delivered:26 November, 1920 or earlier.First Published:PravdaNo. 269, November 30, 1920; Published according to thePravdatext checked against the verbatim report.Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 31, pages 430-433Translated:Julius KatzerTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

In the first written question submitted, a comrade asks whether
    it is true that all institutions of administration are to he
    transferred to Petrograd. That is inaccurate. The rumour has
    arisen from the fact that the Moscow Soviet has had the idea of
    transferring non-essential institutions from Moscow to Petrograd
    because of the housing shortage in the capital. It appears that
    Petrograd can accept up to 10,000 Soviet office workers, who
    number 200,000 in Moscow. To study all aspects of the matter, a
    committee has been set up, which is now working. Its findings will
    be submitted to the Council of People’s Commissars.[2]So you see that this rumour is
    inaccurate in some respects.

The second question and the third ask about concessions. You
    will allow me to dwell on the subject.

In one of his books, Spargo, the American Socialist, a man who
    is something like our Aiexinsky, and has a vindictive hate of the
    Bolsheviks, speaks of concessions as proof of the collapse of
    communism. Our Mensheviks say the same thing. The challenge has
    been made, and we are ready to take it up. Let us consider the
    question in terms of the facts. Who has got the worse of it, we or
    the European bourgeoisie? For three years they have been
    calumniating us, calling us usurpers and bandits; they have had
    recourse to all and every means tooverthrow us, but have now had
    to confess to failure, which is in itself a victory for us. The
    Mensheviks assert that we are pledged to defeating the world
    bourgeoisie on our own. We have, however, always said that we are
    only a single link in the chain of the world revolution, and have
    never set ourselves the aim of achieving victory by our own
    means. The world revolution has not yet come about, but then we
    have not yet been overcome. While militarism is decaying, we are
    growing stronger; not we, but they have had the worse of it.

They now want to subdue us by means of a treaty. Until the
    revolution comes about, bourgeois capital will be useful to
    us. How can we speed up the development of our economy whilst we
    are an economically weaker country? We can do that with the aid of
    bourgeois capital. We now have before us two drafts of
    concessions. One of them is for a ten-year concession in
    Kamchatka. We were recently visited by an American
    multimillionaire, who told us very frankly of the reasons behind
    the treaty, viz., that America wants to have a base in Asia in
    case of a war against Japan. This multimillionaire said that if we
    sold Kamchatka to America, he could promise us such enthusiasm
    among the people of the United States that the American Government
    would immediately recognise the Soviets of Russia. If we gave them
    only the lease, there would be less enthusiasm. He is now on his
    way to America, where he will make it known that Soviet Russia is
    a far cry from what people believed her to he.

We have till now been more than a match for the world
    bourgeoisie, because they are incapable of uniting. The Treaties
    of Brest-Litovsk and Versailles[3]have both divided
    them. An intense hostility is now developing between America and
    Japan. We are making use of this and are offering a lease of
    Kamchatka instead of giving it away gratis; after all, Japan has
    taken a huge expanse of our territory in the Far East,[4]this by
    force of arms. It is far more to our advantage to run no risk,
    grant a lease of Kamchatka, and receive part of its products, the
    more so for our being unable, in any case, to run or exploit
    it. The treaty has not been signed, but it is already being spoken
    of in Japan with the utmost anger. Through this treaty we have
    aggravated the differences between our enemies.

The second kind of
      concession is represented by our granting the lease of several
      million dessiatines[a Russian unit of land
	measure equal to 2.7 acres.—Editor]of
      timberland in Archangel Gubernia which, despite all our efforts,
      we cannot fully exploit. We are arranging a kind of checker-board
      pattern, with sections of timberland we shall be exploiting
      alternating with the leased sections, so that our workers will be
      able to learn the use of felling equipment from their
      neighbours. All this is very much to our advantage.

And now for the final aspect of the question.

Concessions do not mean peace; they too are a kind of warfare,
    only in another form, one that is to our advantage. Previously war
    was waged with the aid of tanks, cannon and the like, which
    hindered our work; the war will now be conducted on the economic
    front. They may perhaps try to restore the freedom to trade, but
    they cannot get along without us. Besides, they have to submit to
    all our laws, and our workers can learn from them; in case of
    war—and we must always be prepared for war against the
    bourgeoisie—the property will remain in our hands by virtue
    of the laws of war. I repeat: concessions are a continuation of
    war on the economic front, but here we do not destroy our
    productive forces, but develop them. They will no doubt try to
    evade our laws and deceive us, but we have the appropriate bodies
    to deal with that, such as the All-Russia Cheka, the Moscow Cheka,
    the Gubernia Cheka, and so on, and we are sure that we shall
    win.

Eighteen months ago we wanted to sign a peace that would have
    given Denikin and Kolchak a vast territory. They turned this down
    and in consequence lost everything.,[5]We have napped out
    the right road to the world revolution, but this road is not a
    straight one, but goes in zigzags. We have weakened the
    bourgeoisie, so that it cannot overcome us by force of arms. They
    used to ban our conduct of communist propaganda; but there can be
    no question of that at present, and it would be ridiculous to
    demand such things. They are decaying from within, and that gives
    us strength. We do not imagine that we shall defeat the world
    bourgeoisie by force of arms alone, and the Mensheviks are wrong
    in ascribing that intention to us.

I did not hear Comrade Kamenev’s report on the
    Conference, but I shall say that the latter teaches us a lesson:
    no matter how the struggle proceeded and whatever memories remain,
    we must put a complete end to everything. It should be remembered
    that the consolidation of our forces is the main and most
    important task. Tasks of economic construction await us. That
    transition will be difficult after six years of war, and we have
    to tackle the problem with united forces, on the platform of the
    All-Russia Conference’s resolutions, which must he carried
    out. The struggle against red-tape methods, and economic and
    administrative work call for unity. What is expected of us is
    propaganda by example; the non-Party masses have to be set an
    example. It will be no easy matter to carry out the resolutions,
    but we must concentrate all our forces on that task and set about
    working in all earnest. I call upon you to do that.

[1]Held in the Hall of Columns, the House of Trade Unions, on
    November 20, 1920, this meeting discussed reports on the Mos cow
    Gubernia Conference of the R.C.P.(B.) and the war situation. Lenin
    spoke at the meeting in connection with the publicationof the
    decree on concessions, on November 25.—Editor

[2]The Council of People's Commissars, with Lenin as chairman, was
    formed by the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets in October
    1917. It was occasionally called the great, or full, Council to
    distinguish it from the small, or limited, Council,
    whichfunctioned under its auspices from December 1917 to 1926 as
    acommission dealing with minor questions and preparing various
    questions for consideration by the full Council of
    People'sCommissars.—Editor

[3]The Peace Treaty of Versailles, which concluded the First World
    War, was signed on June 28, 1919, by the U.S.A., the British
    Empire, France, Italy, Japan and other Allied Powers, on the one
    hand, and Germany, on the other. Lenin wrote, "this is an
    unparalleled and predatory peace, whichhas made slaves of tens of
    millions of people, including the most civilised" (see p. 320 in
    this volume). The treaty consolidated the repartition of the
    capitalist world in favour of the victors, and established a
    system of relationships between countries which was aimed at
    strangling Soviet Russia and suppressingthe world revolutionary
    movement.—Editor

[4]The imperialist government of Japan, in collusion with U.S. and
    British ruling circles, invaded the Far East in the spring of 1918
    in an attempt to seize Soviet territory east of Lake Baikal. On
    April 5, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok. Operating from
    their main strategic base in Vladivostok, they occupied the
    Maritime Province, Northern Sakhalin and the Trans-Baikal
    region. The rout of Keichak at the end of 1919, the growing
    guerilla movement and the economic crisis in Japan in 1920-21,
    which was aggravated by the Japanese-American contradictions,
    spoiled the doom of the interventionists. By the autumn of 1922
    their rout was complete and on October 25 the last
    interventionistsleft Vladivostok.—Editor

[5]The reference is to the talks with Bullitt (seeNote 1fromSpeech at Conference of
    Workers and Red Army Men In Rogozhsko-Simonovsky District Of
    Moscow).